Dana Bell - Blood of the Maple

The three ruling dryads bowed regally to Noah. They’d managed to get right up to the stage in time to hear Amara’s pronouncement and confirm it.

“We need to talk to them about Iva when this is done, my sweet.”

“We do?”

“Yes.”

“Crap. More trouble?”

“Yes. One of Noah’s enforcers has been taken. It could be connected to Iva’s disappearance.”

Amara took a deep breath, but she held out her hand and forearm for the alpha to clasp.

Noah took it, his big paw swallowing her slender arm. The crowd cheered the two, including one very enthusiastic witch who’d managed to sneak her broom in and was currently doing loop-de-loops around Dragos’s chandelier.

Noah looked at his pack and nodded once. They headed for their mates or partners of the evening, leaving Noah, Parker and Amara alone on the stage. The musicians struck up a lively tune, and Amara, laughing, dragged Noah into the gyrating crowd, proving once and for all that everything was forgiven and forgotten.

“Well. Dismissed.” Parker looked up at the witch in the chandelier. “I wonder if she’d like to dance.”

“Parker? What have I told you about the crazy?”

Parker laughed. “Fine. I’ll see if I can drag my wife away from the furry set.”

Parker stepped up behind the big alpha and tapped him on the shoulder. “May I cut in?”

Noah moved back, allowing Parker to take Amara into his arms, right where she belonged. “Enjoying yourself, sweet?”

She draped her arms around his neck. “Mm-hmm.” Her head lowered until it rested on his chest, her curls tickling his nose. “But now it’s better.”

Parker breathed in her scent and damn near fell over. She smelled wet and warm, inviting him into her. “Hold still, sweet. I’m about to take you on a ride.”

He reached out with his mind and traced her nipples with imaginary fingers before she could protest.

Amara gulped. “Oh hell. ” She clenched her fingers in his hair and tightened them to the point of pain. “Here?”

“Think you can be quiet?”

“Are you kidding me? Take me home, Pa-Parker. Oh Goddess. Parker.”

He’d slid one of his “hands” down to the wet cleft between her thighs. He stroked her clit, eager to see her passion, to let everyone in this room know exactly who she belonged to. “You’re going to come for me, sweet. Right here, right now.”

She growled up at him, her eyes glowing bright green. “I don’t think so.”

Parker didn’t have time to react. He found himself slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, his fingers dangling dangerously close to the ground. “Um. Amara?” He didn’t know whether to laugh or mist away, embarrassed beyond belief.

“Excuse me, please. I have to take my husband home.”

“Is he sick?”

Oh dear Goddess. Selena touched his hip. He wasn’t surprised when her hand was abruptly lifted.

“He’s fine, Selena. He just needs to go home now. ”

“Oh.”

He could hear the laughter in the woman’s voice and knew this would take him decades to live down. However, he could forgive a lot. Amara had called him her husband for the first time. That alone warranted his cooperation. “Can I walk at least?”

Amara strode forward, carrying him out of the ballroom like some barbarian hero—or would that be heroine? “Do you promise to be a good boy until I get you naked and begging?”

He blinked. “I think I could manage it.”

The ballroom doors swung shut behind them, drowning out the whistles, laughter and clapping of the people of Maggie’s Grove.

Yup. It would take decades for their friends to forget the sight of him being carried out of the ball by his petite wife. He cupped Amara’s ass as she carried him out of the mansion, intent on having her wicked way with him. Laughter bubbled out of him when she swatted his ass with an order to “be good.”

“And what will I get if I do?” he sent her along their bond.

“I promise to be very, very good.”

Parker grinned, his fangs descending. He hoped it was going to be a long night.

“I can live with that.”

Dana Marie Bell wrote her first short story when she was thirteen years old. She attended the High School for Creative and Performing Arts for creative writing, where freedom of expression was the order of the day. When her parents moved out of the city and placed her in a Catholic high school for her senior year, she tried desperately to get away, but the nuns held fast, and she graduated with honors despite herself. She’s now a bestselling author with Carina Press and Samhain Publishing, and has consistently earned top reviews from Romantic Times Book Reviews.

Dana has lived primarily in the Northeast with a brief stint on the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix. She lives with her soul mate and husband, Dusty, their two maniacal children, an evil ice cream–stealing cat and a bull terrier that thinks it’s a Pekinese. She’s been heard to describe herself as “vertically challenged” and “a lapsed brunette.” Dana also suffers from osteoarthritis, and can be seen walking with a cane or tooling around in her mobility scooter. Her condition was the inspiration for Belle’s hip injury in Steel Beauty .